"We now stand on the frontier of the Sun's domain, and are, in imagination, looking across one of those broad gulfs which, like impassable ramparts fence off the different systems of the universe from each other. It seemed needful that the great Architect should interpose some such barrier between the contending attractions of the giant masses of matter scattered through space; that there should be a _sea_ of limitation in which forces, whose action might disturb each other, should die out and be extinguished. In it the flood-light of our glorious Sun gets weaker and weaker, and its bright disk wastes away by distance, until it shines only as a twinkling star. And the strong chain of its attraction which held with firm grasp the planets in their orbits, after dwindling by fixed degrees into a force that would not break a gossamer, is finally dissipated and lost. "Now we ask, Is it likely that those vast orbs--with masses and densities so wonderfully modified and adjusted in accordance with what we perceive to be the requirements of living creatures--with years and months, days and nights, seasons and climates--with atmosphere and twilights, trade-winds and currents--with clouds and rains, continents and seas, mountains and polar snows--with sun, moon, and stars, and, in short, with all the elements that make up the conditions of a habitable globe--is it likely that those glorious works of the Creator should have been formed to lie waste, sterile, and unprofitable? Or even if we could bring ourselves to think that those masses, whose united bulk dwarfs our Earth into insignificance, had been solely created as make-weights to keep this little atom of Earth in its place, why should they have been provided with complicated systems of moons revolving round them to give them auxiliary light? The Sun's light they share in common with ourselves; but for what conceivable purpose should deserts void of life have been supplied with those wonderful lamps to light them up in the absence of the Sun? Conditions that might be incompatible with our organization, may be by adjustment of creative wisdom exactly suited to the beings placed to inhabit them. All life, even if it be essentially the same in principle, may not everywhere assume the same phase of outward existence, nor need we attempt to set limits in this respect to the Lord of Life. The spaces lie there furnished ready--the Word was only required to people them with life. "Such inquiries have an interest which goes beyond their mere astronomical import, for they touch our conceptions of God's greatness, wisdom, and power. Is there one who does not long to be able reasonably to cherish the thought that, far away from this _tiny_ speck of Earth, in the remote realms of space, we behold worlds inhabited by beings who, it may be, are privileged to know their Creator, and to bless, praise, and magnify Him forever."